Thomas Hardy's Ale

This was a pretty rare find. I bought it from a basement bar in State College called The Brewery, which is about the dankest urine-est smelling place I've ever been too. It's like, if The Pub on State Street had a shed, and that shed had its own shed and in the shed of the shed of The Pub there was a basement and in that basement there was a bar called the Brewery. I'm talking about The Dank. The guy behind the counter said they've had a case of Thomas Hardy's Ale for about three years (the vintage is 2004).

Having said all of that, the beer was fun to drink, since I've never had anything quite like it. Very sweet and raisony and surely higher than the 11.7% ABV listed on the bottle. It was not beer; more like brandy. Basically flat. Again, fun to drink. One per year seems about right.

Grade: A-.